call C C Council Workshop Tuesday June 18 United States of America please Mayor John Eric Hoover here vice mayor Linda Rodriguez here councilman David Mueller here councilman Robert hubard here city manager Matthew coppler here thank you uh first up comicman general public I have no signups show hands anybody like to speak to bring it back to comments from the city manager pass it to Mr cop comments nothing for this evening thank you comments from the mayor and city council I'll start to my left with vice mayor um I would I nothing regarding this I'm just I was sorry to hear the Cherokee isign so um I know it's been four months but being a mom is very difficult so yeah lot lot of time commitment here so um I thank her for the for the short time that she had here she had a lot of with good insight and um I I'll miss her but I know I'll keep in touch with her so thank you sorry that she uh she had to resign thank you um c h CER um yes I'm sorry to hear that as well I thought Cherokee brought a a younger voice to this table and uh to the community and um her efforts will be missed and then as well again extend uh released a a a statement to the the media that we appreciate the service that she fried to the city and wish nothing but the best going forward her future endeavors um the only thing I had was is I wanted to uh briefly just talk a little bit about the Quorum going forward we've um you know i' I've really tried to facilitate conversation and even with the public um with council members there's been times when people talk over each other and it gets back and forth and so I want to kind of reain that in a little bit in hopes that we can uh be a little more focused not be here as long um obviously we we have plenty of time to speak and still will have that but just to be a little more facilitative uh if you can address the chair um if you want to speak you know obviously as we go through action items I'll reach out to each one of you um for a comment um but in the middle of that if if you want to have the floor make sure you address it to the chair first same thing if you want to if there's somebody you want to hear from in the audience don't just call them up uh again again we got to make sure that we we keep uh that under under wraps it's not a dialogue back and forth if there's a question that uh individual wants to answer just again address the chair first I'm happy to bring people up I'm happy to get your questions answered just make sure it's all coming through me so it's not uh Willy and Illy here you know come on up and it just kind of gets out of control and please make sure if somebody's talking that you reserve your comments until after and I'm just as guilty as that as anybody so let's just try to be a little more have a little more decorum going forward so we can uh get City business done in the in least possible time as we need it's it's hard on staff it's hard on the public it's hard on us um we've got a lot of stuff going on also we want to make sure that we we get that done let's let's try to keep that the Corum as it should be okay that being said the first item business is discussion of dispatch options I'll pass that to Mr copper for introduction thank you um at our last meeting uh Council TS me with uh looking at three three different options um as related to dispatch uh first one was kind of an Allin what I call it where we do everything to the highest level that we possibly can second one is kind of a hybrid where uh we we actually allow the dispatching for the fire department to be done by the county um but the dispatch for the police department is done inhouse and again we start implementing those those positive procedures that we think uh you know would make the dispatch level better uh for our officers um and then the third one is looking at Contracting out completely the county um and so what I've prepared and put in your packet um are those options and I kind of done a way to and if you allow me to kind of go through this with you uh kind of give you what what the understanding is of what that means each of the different uh options as well as a cost perspective and then kind of give you a pro and con of of what I think is pro and con um for each of those that's okay absolutely okay so uh the first one is dispatch provided by the city so the components of that eight full-time dispatchers uh at least four time part or four part-time now in that when when you look at the cost uh the part-time wages effectively amount to a full-time position so if you kind of looked at what that wage is that is reflective what a full-time position um kind of in between a low and high uh salary uh number is so when I say for part-time it's really one full-time in cost and the reality is that that if everything goes right you're not really going to be utilizing all that money um and again I'll get into that a little bit more um this would uh equate to two uh Dispatchers in the center at all times uh we would also have two of those eight being supervisors uh so we'd have supervisory staff in there at certain times during the day and of the week uh oversight will be provided by a committee of city manager police chief and fire chief uh the dispatcher is trained to both police and fire dispatching certification program we develop for all Personnel so this make sure that they all meet the level of of qualification that we want them to have um as it relates to both police dispatch and fire dispatch uh we would Implement a quality assurance program uh which in my in my parlance means that you know we will be doing regular review and Analysis of performance of the uh dispatchers um looking at certain number of calls reviewing calls where there were issues that were flagged by the police chief or fire chief um were those that fell outside of of what any allowances we set so in this um kind of using some of the the terminology that dve uses you know we'd be setting that that service level agreement and anything that falls outside that service level agreement we would be you know having to analyze and understand why it it fell out outside of that and in doing that you reduce potential for bad things to happen down the road and then the the pay rates for dispatches are increased so as you go through this you know I'm sure uh maybe maybe not uh that you may have been a little bit shocked at what the cost of employing eight full-time dispatchers plus uh allowing for potential for four full-time or part-time dispatchers would cost you but but um the First Column there on this is reflective of what we have in the budget and and it is an all-in number so that takes into account those numbers that also fell into um it would be paid out of the the utilities fund so this reflects the total cost um across both of those and again the some of the items are pretty similar to what is currently in the budget um as relates to the all-in model but we did increase obviously the wages the part-time uh overtime increased obviously holiday pay increases because you're doubling the number of uh people the taxes the contributions health insurance uh and again health insurance assumes that each each employee will be taking our our insurance not necessarily given but but assumes that increases training um we're going to be hiring more people so physical exams have to increase a little bit of increase with Professional Services uh but you know once you get beyond that other than uh uniform allowances and maintenance it's pretty much the same as as what we have in the current current budget so kind of going through this uh you know we M we uh you know will maintain full control of the dispatch process uh we get to dictate I use the word dictate the uh SLA because you know in the end the city is the one that controls it so we we set what that standard needs to be and and all the different levels of dispatch we're going to be doing uh we're 100% responsible for hiring training of employees um no guarantee that hiring will be easier or turnover rates will improve um I think that's something we have to be aware of that that we may have a goal that and we have a thought that increasing pay and improving the the levels that we're looking for will make it easier but there's no guarantee of that um improved level service come with quality assurance and training uh more costly obviously than the other two options uh in comparison to the county you know we have no backup center I mean we live and die here with this this one um and requires substantial commitment from departments management Council and I am going to re emphas ize that piece for this to work it requires substantial commitment from the Department's management and Council to make this work um you know it can't be okay we solved the problem let's move on to the next one because that's not the way dispatch works you know dispatch requires a constant you know review it requires you know making sure that we are providing resources and and the you know things that make dispatch work we have to make sure we're there um and again that's the thing that in my mind makes this the highest risk because what I've seen other places and I'm not saying here is indicative of other places I've been but you know once once problems seem to be solved people move on and there isn't that Spotlight on it and we would have to work to make sure that there is that Spotlight on this at all time so we don't fall short because you can have police you can have fire but if you don't have people sending them to the right place at all times you don't have police and you don't have fire so it requires a lot of commitment from all of us to make this work I don't know if you want to ask any questions on that or you want me to move on do all three and then come back or do all three do all three I'd rather do as you go because we got issues here I don't know if you're going to to come back to let's do that I'll open the floor to to this particular thing so da you have some questions oh yeah uh when you mentioned uh police and fire uh trained inv bul uh are they also going to be trained in the medical aspect of this too um you know I I think that is an aspiration that somewhere down the road that will get the the medical side of that um I I think in every every dish Pat I've seen that is ultimately where you want to be um but I think in the near term and probably for a number of years we're not going to be able to do that crawl before we walk R yeah and and and I think you know to be honest the way that the county is doing it now um we're getting that that element for free it makes sense to kind of keep it there right and and I think that the other point with that is you know un un you know fire and EMS work differently here in this County than police and sheriff and the other departments and so you got you got to think differently when you think about fire versus the police the police side of this you know the system really is very integrated you know while we have our own fire department our fire department is is a cog in the greater Fire Protection Services in the the county and the county is a cog in the City's Fire Services more so than than what you see with sheriff and the police department right and so the the the benefit to having the county continue that that medical piece is that they are really providing the transport piece you know think of us as as the people that rush to get there and start to get the the you know whatever the the situation is stabilized and then we hand off I mean is that a fair fair to way to look at je I mean and so we want to make sure as that Continuum of Care happens you know that we pass it off into the hands of of them they need to know what's going on and so from from that dispatch and communication piece that that linkage that they have is very important and to take it out is is going to be a difficult thing to do and and we're you know I'm not going to say it's going it would hurt our ability to provide the level of services to our residents on on the fire medical side I think it just doesn't make any sense to try to do that I mean why why fix that when it really isn't what's broken so at the beginning the medical they would still be doing the medical isue okay and then U what you mentioned that we get a dictate our SLA what is our SLA today yeah do we have one uh I well from well if it's there I I'm not sure what it is okay and and if it's there I don't think it's the level that we want we all want it okay and I think it's best to say that that we've been probably for too long just trying to get by so we haven't really develop what that is thank you it what's SL service level agreement it's a fancy way of saying I just use it because I know Dave likes to say that word he said it I don't know how many times since I've been here in other words you respond within a certain period of time I would just people who don't know what that yeah when I used to sit out there up here would use acronyms and I was like what the heck is that stand for so that's good point so I just wanted to clarify that um I don't have anything right now I've got a lot of things written but I want to hear all three before I make because I want to get all the information before I I I update on what our our personal SLA is yeah so it's not may not be written in stone but our a fire department's cross the nation including us push for an under a five minute you know under five minute response time to every emergency and we push for a higher level of care we're right now we're First Response BLS and we got the approval over the last two years we've been fighting and pushing to make ourselves better I mean we have to take the truck we have to have the Manpower we got to get to the call why not bring our a game what is our a game for the fire department that's Advanced life support so the same trucks got to go to the same call the same dispatchers got to dispatch it if I can bring a parametic to that call that just brings our game up so our our our service level you know that we're looking for is to that five minute response time which we're well under and and to bring a paramedic which we just got the approvals met with the medical director the other day and we should hopefully be going ALS long before October one so that's our basic service level agreement I know very impressive no thought he was done I knew that um I was just saying absolutely we need to have ACLS we've talked about this in the past I absolutely 100% support that because you are the first you do get there before everybody else and that is um definitely a lifesaver for our community so I absolutely 100% that percent percent agree with that because we don't have to duplicate transport they have it they come perfect and you guys will save a lot of lives doing that so kudos to you guys I know there's a lot hard work in doing that so thank you very much Bob did you have any comment oh that was impressive a question I had before we move on is uh just to clarify So when you say and this applies across all the options so when you say eight full-time dispatchers at least four four part-time this number has eight full-time and four time four parttime baked into it right so well we have 12 employees or well so the parttime numbers are kind of malleable um what what we have in there cost wise is one you know really a nice full-time wage or um equivalency in there right fulltime equivalent yes we have FTE so we have eight FTE actually nine FTE nine FTE on the wage side so one FTE is for the four part yeah and and so that could be two part time it could be five part time you part-time is is I don't know how long they work yeah I mean I I think the when when you look at the Staffing piece everything is perfect while everyone is working but the reality is people are going to have vacation they're going to have personal days they're going to have sick days you know there's going to be times when we're recruiting because there's going to be a change over and I think that's again you know in looking at this the goal is to have eight full-time the reality is probably going to be we are going to be in this constant recruiting process for one to two positions every year and and that's just I think what the industry is is seeing is about 25% or so 20 25% turn over within in the the the dispatching profession and so that tells me that we're going to be in times not staff today so we're going to have to have part-time people yeah and and so we're you know we may need it may be two that we need you know we may have two really good dispatcher or part-timers that can fill up you know the equivalency of one person or one one FTE it may take four we may find it take six um you know with in in other places I I know councils kind of get caught up in do we have you know the number of positions you know I always say on the part-time don't get caught up in the number of positions get caught up in in the amount we spend because you know maybe it really is you know the two full-time equivalencies we need not one because we're going to be recruiting so you know maybe it's not two positions we're always crudity maybe it's three so that's going to change that Dynamic somewhere in that but don't get caught up in the number of parttime positions um because it could take that many you it could take six to equate to you know one full-time so what we're looking at here on object 120 which is the the eight full-time dispatchers 303 and all in model and then the 130 part time that's one full-time equivalent at 37440 and that 37440 could be four could be two could be six just depends on but it doesn't it doesn't change based on the employee the parttime account right okay thank you I anything else we live on the the part time is like that's is about to do for a living um if sometimes they'll only work one day a week and sometimes you'll have somebody that'll work three days a week you know somebody their availabilities as well so that kind of you've got five people that only want to work one day a week then that's it or you've got two people that want to work three days a week so that's where you're your different numbers come in as well as is their their needs and how you marry the two their needs and our needs right yeah so it's part-time 20 hours a week it's it's spend on how much they want to work and how much we need what happens if nobody's on vacation then we don't need them like I deal with that now you know I Mondays and Tuesdays are not busy so I don't use my part-timers but Wednesdays and Thursdays are really crazy so I use my part-timers that so it's it's the same kind of principle cool so these numbers are based on basically average averages and probably be the most that we would spend is that what you're saying um well where where uh on on the wages the regular salaries and Wages that's probably on the the maximum side of what you're going to spend what these are okay that's what the part-time wages is the best guess at thinking that we're going to have you know two two ways to fill in for those vacancies of the of any of the eight two ways we're gonna part-time and overtime right so there's going to be a mix between those two that we'll be using because here's here's the other the other piece of all this is that problem with with part- timr if their career isn't dispatching let's say they dispatch but they also do they they work on polls right so they may spend only 10 hours a week doing dispatch for us well if you call right you want the same level of service regardless of who's on the other end of that that telephone right and so you know part-timers maybe aren't the best when you know that there is and if there is a way to predict the cycles of calls coming in right you know maybe uh they Friday and Saturday night maybe might be a little bit more busy than say Sunday morning I'm guessing you might want to be using a a dispatcher that you've trained certified or a higher level of ability in those peak times rather than someone that that only is you know working 10 hours a week and you know I I think in in another place I liken it to our EMS we had we had emfs that did both uh Advanced basic and we also had part-time people that had other careers you know and I know that their careers weren't necessarily intubating people I wouldn't want them to innovate me right I I want the people that are doing it on a daily basis because if you're gonna be sticking something down my throat like that I'd rather not be torn up um and so you want people that that are constantly doing that so they're they're at a higher level when when a more you know potential for a bad situation to happen and so that's that's the weakness with the part-time is that you don't you don't get that higher level and and you know we're going to have to figure out a way to to try to implement a training program with part-time people that achieves the the same goals that we have with any full-time because again our our desire is everything up here not here times down here other times and maybe here other times Well we get more employees like that especially like part-time and they're not showing up which we've had that happen a lot then you get into overtime with regular employees then that eats up even more than the part-time would so then it can deviate drastically if we have problems with that and I was wondering if say a year for now we address this again if we decide uh to contract this out to Pasco County how long is this contract for is is that a permanent deal or can we renegotiate a year and take neg right well I think if we get if we get into that there's there's a whole another level if Council were to say let's go to the county there's a whole another level of work that has to be done in terms of negotiating what that that agreement's going to be um so that's that's where we get into that you know what's the length of the agreement what's what's the slas you know what what are the the you know if we decide we don't want to do it you know is there an investment we're making as part of this that we get back right I mean all these things have to be discussed without we may we may decide that our citizens be better off we just keep it in houses later on down the road so Pasco County is GNA hire a couple more people probably if we do that if they contract out to them and then they're not going to want to fire them they may want a five-year contract I don't know but it look based upon what what they submitted to us and and if you want we can probably talk about maybe we should talk about that better we get to that okay all right okay so anything else on first one okay go second so then we have the hybrid dispatch model um so the components with this uh fire dispatching contracted out the Pasco County communications uh we would have six full-time dispatchers at least four part-time again that's that's a guess the number could be six could be two who knows um one dispatcher at all time with second dispatcher in Center for busier times so with six you get an average of one one and a half right and I know you can't have a half a person what that means is over a 24hour period you know half of that time is going to be with two dispatchers half the time is going to be one um we're going down from two dis or two supervisory positions to one supervisory position within that so one of the six will be considered a supervisor um the training would then only be looking at police dispatching so we wouldn't be getting into the fire Services training necessary if we kept the fire department uh we still have the certification program for all Personnel quality assurance program implemented uh this one the oversight provided by a chief of police uh again we're going to increase the rate of pay for the dispatchers uh as part of this so when you look at this obviously one of the the numbers that changes is the regular salaries wages um that goes down because we're effectively only doing six rather than eight so two less um part-time wages again still show an FTE you know of one um and everything's kind of readjusted then as you go down the the uh the model numbers there to reflect fewer uh employees uh what you do see in there is the contract with the county and so I reached out to uh the county and asked the question if we were to um only have you dispatch fire Services the way I put it is could you provide me an estimate as to what you think that contract amount would be and if you tell me that you know there's too many variables to come up with that I understand um and I think is that I would estimate what that number was I wouldn't have estimated that number um but that's the number that they came back with and and their rationale with that number is that it would it would be effectively one one position for them um so that's that's where that number comes from again I think if we actually got into this and this is the the way that we wanted to go when we sit down with them that number is going to be different I think it's going to be less than what that number is um but again based upon the exercise I had them go through I understand why they probably went with a higher number um but I think that number is a little bit higher than what what it would be in the end so uh kind of going through this uh FD will have a dedicated fire train dispatcher uh fire department Crews only monitor one channel uh with this and and again I don't necessarily understand why they're monitoring more but they do monitor more and they can explain that um definitely creates better coordination between the our fire department pasu County fire department and Newport Richie fire department um and again keep in mind that that it really is they are they are a unit and that's what makes us strong which makes them strong um and provides the highest level services for our residents uh we get to dictate the service level agreement for police services but we'd have to negotiate that SLA with the county for the fire department um responsible for hiring and training of employees still uh no guarantee the hire going to be easier turnover rates will be improveed uh definitely we'll get an improved level of service comes with uh quality assurance for both what the county does and what the city does um again no backup center for the police department and requires substantial commitment from Police Department management and Council because again we can't walk away and say we solved the problem you know we have to be vigil Vigilant and make sure that that you know we we are getting what we are paying for because again this there's a lot of money being spent and we want to make sure that that we are at the level that that we think we should be at any questions on that Pro seeed to the next and so then the last the last one um dispatch contracted out to Pasco County uh components both police and fire dispatch are handled by Pasco County communications uh I've changed the title I'm not saying this what they have to be I kind of went back in time to another place where we had um what we called police AIDs that that handled a lot of the similar things that that these individuals would be doing uh in the end would be four uh with parttime with at least two part-time so when you look at the the wages we reduced a little bit of the part-time salaries and wages from the other two models um again police States will be responsible for duties defined by the chief of police to include um but not limited to teletype resident Walkins impound releases Public Works and utilities call and other value added Services defined by the chief of police I think there's opportunities there that that uh you know because we don't have the flexibility that we have would have with this this model that there could be other things that that you know we would find to be superiorly you know value added to the the role in the mission of the police department I mean I think some of the uh departments you know are are look looking at using what used to be their their dispatching positions to be looking at at you know crime analyics and things like that that you know kind of you know would be very beneficial I think towards the end of of what the police department does but again because we don't have those positions available to us right now we don't know what they they could be so um and then pay rat for the police AIDS are estimated here to be at the current levels um you know that may change as we look at it maybe you know we want to have different different tiers of those positions where you know there's certain qualifications we want some to get and you know that could change what that that pay structure is but again as we're looking at it now because we don't have it I don't know um big big change over what we currently spend versus what this model would be option would be is the contract to the county which is the $913 let me say with that if if you look at what the county gave us there is this little line there that that says that there will be a three-year look back at the end of three years so I'm leading that leads me to believe they want a three-year commitment from us um at least threee commitment that they're planing on looking back at what the costs were and potentially in in any contract that we get there would be some provision that says you know if there's more costs to provideing the service we would have to pay that or they would increase go forward from there to compensate for that or again we just don't have that I had asked for uh the contracts that they have with other jurisdictions I think they're still in the contract pH with Newport Richie um I expected to see zeper Hills but I haven't gotten that yet so that's still a piece of information I would like to see but it would be interesting to understand what those contracts look like so we can maybe have a little bit more understanding of what that is I ask if you got any reports from other cities similar to our side and and I know the chief uh has been in contact with with the different departments and obviously he can provide any any information that he's found from them in terms of that piece um but let me finish this and Staffing dispatch will not be a city issue 100% the county is going to have to figure out how to provide the the people that will be answering the calls and sending out the calls to the fire uh TR train communication operators that have call taking and dispatching Duty separated for better focus again that that's going to be one one of the areas that that we are not going to be able to do all the time but I think if we did it all in with eight dispatchers there's going to be times when you know you will be able to segregate those duties where the dispatcher could be doing just call taking duties while another one could be operating as a dispatcher and so in low volume times could be changing up so they keep their their skills for both things I think it it allows for a better focus for the dispatcher to concentrate on what they're doing um and might provide a little bit more service to the residents when they're calling in and allows for maybe a little bit more information gathering in that call when it comes in but that's that's the benefit that they have and and why they can do that EMD um well we can't they're they have someone that's taking a call and they're going to be on that call and not dispatching so they then can do that medical work through with the the caller all that medical protocol um any issues that would arise would have to be addressed through collaborative processes so there would be a loss of some control and and this is something that you really need as an elected body come to grips with um I've seen it where uh you know issues arise and and usually it happens to you know the trigger is something that happens someone you know someone maybe you love unfortunately and there's some breakdown in the process and in here if there's that breakdown in the process we have better control over but the remedy it um there you wouldn't there you would have to work it as I said through a collaborative process that may be a little bit frustrating at times because they may not have the same point of view on on things that we have in terms of you know was it someone screwed up you know was it a policy issue you know what was it that led to that bad you know outcome and and you don't have the control you like to have be able to change things I know I've experienced it councils I've worked with experienced it police Chiefs Fire Chiefs have experienced it that is one of the biggest downsides I think to going to the county is that you know you have to work within their system and and it is a change and and while you know kind of getting into um you know that SLA concept as well know they will they will tell us that nothing will change but I'm going to tell you something will change and and it's you know and it's not because they're evil people that they want to do change because they want to have all this control over us it's because when you're dispatching so many different departments you can't keep tracking right I mean it's it's a very difficult thing you know I've sat in those those larger dispatch centers I've listened to how they handle it sometimes I'm amazed that you know they know and they know by the numbers that came up on their screen what it is but but sometimes they just forget that you know I'm dealing with Port Richie and not Newport Richie right I just those breakdowns happen um and so the only way that you can at that large scale operation is you have to start getting everyone doing the same thing so if that breakdown happens no one knows that it happens and it doesn't impact the quality of service so I'm just saying that day one it may not be noticeable but at some point you're going to start seeing this March towards a more um unified way of doing business that was up one place first place I was a city manager uh they were were already uh working with the county on on their dispatch and and you know I was fortunate enough to be there when when they dropped it okay we're going to renumber all the units and it was going to be based on their numbering right and you know for a department that's that's a huge thing when you know you're used to the chief being either one or 100 you know now all of a sudden the chief's going to be 2 221 or 2 18 or something it's like but but these impact the way you do service and and so you have to be understanding that's going to happen I can't say exactly how it will happen but it will happen um higher level of quality control and policies it can't be replicated at our scale and and I I I know some of you haven't been able to do a tour of of their Dispatch Center so you probably haven't heard this s and I don't I don't think they did really Justice to what they're doing I mean the level of quality control that they do is incredible you they have I think four full-time positions that that you know they work not only on the training piece to make sure their their people are getting the right type of training but they're constantly pulling calls and reviewing it and and if nothing else that you you hear for me this is one thing to understand is only way to ensure a high quality of service is you got to do Dy right you know Auto industry figured it out you know all industry figures out if we're not doing quality control we're not we're not controlling the product we put out same thing goes for dispatching you have to have someone that is you know if not constantly people know are constantly reviewing the work they do and knowing that they'll be held accountable for the work they do they're not going to do the work they want them to do it's just how it is you have to be doing again the service agreement need to be negotiated um we would need to keep 247 Staffing for the police department for those those different duties we've talked about in the past um again I said we will need to make some changes operation to inform to the way the county dispatches both at change over and possibly down the road don't ask me what that's going to be because I'm not sure exactly what it's going to be but it's going to be there and and obviously of of three options that that I've provided to you this is the least expensive of three options um I think in in kind of summing these three things up there there shouldn't be I mean in in a perfect world in a perfect world this you know contractual uh service should be less than than what you're paying now but in our world it's not but understand that that you're not doing the things we're not doing the things that we should be doing in terms of how we operate a dispatch first off the dispatches we have have done an incredible job with what we've given them to do incredible I mean again not having you know really any any issue you can point to readily saying this was a big screw up you don't have that and and again that means that you have people that that work very hard to accomplish what what they do but let me just say that that that's also luck um because it's just it is you know any any level of dispatching there's always those those bad moments oh moments that are going to happen and and they will happen as sometime um and and not you know providing the highest level of training not providing the right Staffing you know not having the right quality control not doing all these things that you know help mitigate the potential for that to happen means that that you know it's just it's lock and you know that's not a great management tool to to have in in the the tool box is locked so when when you look at it it's an increase cost over what what we're doing but it is a lower cost than us doing it right I think I'm I'm excited about the challenge of us doing it ourselves because I think we could do something really great and and I think it would require a lot of work by a lot of people to bring that about but still there's risk in that um so you have a very difficult decision unfortunately and uh I guess I'm looking towards you know what else do you need to help make that decision um so we can get moving forward because I think we do have to kind of move this forward sometime in the very near future do any questions yeah I open up have I have questions start um thank you um a lot of information and it is a huge decision we have to make I mean this is this is probably one of the uses we've had to make um and I've looked at this and teetered back and forth I recall what was said what Chief Paul castri said as well um some of the things if we go to the county it looks like it's a three-year contract so we are tied in for three years we cannot undo it for three years theoretically because that's that's what it looked like right so so let's just say three years be more they never said but it looks like so so let's just use that as as a as a guessing base point three years we are we are I was going to say stuck but it could be could be great we don't know um we can always go back to us doing it ourselves if it doesn't work out sure but the cost of that would be tremendous because we will be three years down the road we will not have the correct equipment we will not have the right staff um the the cost to reup a program like this would be astronomical um we definitely need more staff dispatch one person at a time is definitely not enough um we definitely need to increase their their wages hopefully that will draw more people in um I agree with Matt in the fact that we're always going to have vacancies working in the profession I am we all we do and it's not not fun um but we do so um there will be some overtime involved in that and somebody will always pick it up somebody always wants extra cash so that's it um we are working we are dealing with a life and death situation whether it be police and or fire um and we have to do it correctly continuing education I don't know I haven't asked I I don't know how much is involved in that But continuing education is always a must in anything in the medical field well any field really but life and death um so we need to probably at least evaluate and no less than maintain or definitely bump it up um I'm gearing towards personally keeping our own for a year do what's in here see how it works and then in a year we can reevaluate it and go to the county then because I don't think they're going to say no to us but we can't go back to us doing it we lose control of our people as Matt said if something happens wrong in the city we're a little we're a little Cog in a big engine and we're not going to have any pull we're not going to I mean if something goes wrong we we have no no recourse we can tell them it's wrong but I mean I I hate to continue to do this but I work in a in in in a field where my hospital is part of a huge conglomerate and it's the huge conglomerate that dictates not the little Cog in the wheel so we will not have any say in that it will go as they say if they want to change the numbers to whatever or they'll do it they're just going to do it and they're not going to ask our opinion or care what we say um so I really I I was kind of teetering and I even told that to Matt earlier I was kind of teetering I didn't really know where to go um and this is a huge decision and I don't want to make the wrong one but I'm I'm really thinking because we can go to the county in the future but we've not done any major changes to fix dispatch you know we we've acknowledged that there's room for Improvement that it needs to be fixed fire has acknowledged that I I stand with you guys you know that um and I think we need to try to fix what we have before we completely abandon it and go to something else we've not tried to fix it we've made no effort to really fix it in my opinion I maybe I'm wrong you guys can all correct me um but I think we need to try to fix what we have see how it goes it's what happens in six months we could say oh this is not working let's go to the county but let's try to fix what we have and uh move forward I don't want to lose control and and if we have to that's fine but I would like to try to fix what we have thank you thanks well I I don't know if anybody else has tour the facility I took time to tour both our facility and uh their facility and I asked some of the questions that you were addressing and one of the things that they provided is if we move to County we do get a seat at the table they appoint somebody from either our police fire whatever so we do have a voice into the process and potentially if we get a strong SLA that's got um the things that we're interested in a five minute response time and those kinds of things or in in their case it would be how are they dealing with our calls it wouldn't be your response time you know um and they o indicated that they have the reporting capabilities similar to our uh our I guess it's it's a cad system right so a lot of the things that they bring to the table they got redundancy with the backup center over in date City if there's an emergency over here and it wipes us out we don't have a response to that right now if if we went down what is our protocol to go to count uh to deal with that does County step in or yeah just I think Bob sorry they finish so I don't know what that is now so there's some there's some definite benefits looking at going to County the redundancy uh the staff was amazing there um that room that all the activi was going on they had probably 15 PE trainees that they were actually training so that's been our Achilles heel here we have not been able to one staff and to maintain uh people to to address the needs of this community and this is a potential opportunity to move in that direction and bring a better level of service uh but I'm okay with where Linda's going too is if we want to give it a try and figure out that hey we're going to make an attempt but we've been trying to make an attempt I'd like to see an honest attempt to try to get some resolution here if we're going to do that give it 6 months and see where we lay anyway that those are my thoughts Bob yeah I've feel the same way Dave does but also agree with Lyon I would prefer to keep it house I think we get better quality if we kept it in house um these guys do a great job um and I i' like their a little bit more of their input on what they think I'll comment and I guess I turn over to them so so my take on it is uh and I'm going to I'm going to play the numbers obviously and of course I hear I hear all the the comments and I myself would love to keep it in house as well I just don't see that that we could ever provide that level of service I did to the county facil as well um they're doing a lot of things that even if we do fix it we'll never we'll never provide that level of service it's just it's just not we can't do that um I would you know and I don't know what the lock in is three three years or whether we can do maybe a year at a time and and go back but if you if you look at the numbers that we have here in front of us going in the county is a 34% increase that's our cheapest option 34% increase okay and so over the course of three years if we did that we would spend the same money as if we commit to one year of keeping it in here we would have three years with the county for the same money because it's 34% increase years that's that's a full 100% right um this the hybrid option where fire department goes and of course they they've actually advocated for that and and given good reasons they they want to do that that's an 81% increase now that may be less depending on what that final 61,000 ends up being but at the 61,000 we're talking 81% increase in our cost to do a hybrid and then of course to to do that keep it in house we're at 101% increase in the cost so we're basically we're over we're more than doubling our costs what we're paying now to keep it in house and again at that doubling of the cost we're not even achieving redundancy so if some something happens here where we lose connectivity for whatever reason we don't have a backup site we're down the county would have that if if we have trouble Staffing and this again this is assuming that we we have people lined up to take these positions again we're not I think this is based on a $17 an hour salary is that yeah I think entry level would be 17 17 to 19 I think was a but anyway the county is is paying the top end right and so from an individual's perspective why would they come here when the countyy is always hiring the county made it perfectly clear if we were to go to the county they would take all of our dispatchers if we wanted to move there and they would take them on as employees so they they have trouble filling their positions but again they're a much bigger entity and so they don't have to worry about um turnover as much as we would we we would be you know bare minimum staffed we would have some extra increasing that at a cost but again we're we're doubling our cost and we don't have the redundancy we don't have the quality control uh we don't have uh that death so if a couple people get sick with covid or whatever to to try to staff that the county just has a a bigger pool to service so I think we could throw a lot of money at this uh at the end of the day it's coming out of the resident's pocket and there's as we know there's lots of other things that we have to to spend on water infrastructure road infrastructure the list goes on we all know those things and so for us to um from us to look at this with emotion and saying gosh we'd really like to keep it here and and I get that I hear all those things I get it and but at some point you gotta you got to look at this as a as a business transaction and realize that we are just not in a position to to where it's viable to try to keep this in house in my opinion at the cost that we would have to spend and again at that cost we're not even getting all the things we would get other than full control of our SLA right but we would have trouble meeting that SLA we would give ourselves because we would have other problems that would come along that we wouldn't have with the county so you know I'm obviously leaning towards the county because it's it's we're going to spend an additional 35,000 or 30 sorry we're going to spend additional almost $100,000 a year a 34% increase as it is and that's that's unavoidable we have to do something and this is the low cost option um and I think it's not only is it the lower cost option It Is by all the data you see here the better option now there's there's risk in every decision and there's there's things that uh we can talk about but I think in reality if we look everybody's doing this because it makes sense and I really don't see us getting into this and then all falling apart I think the county is going to take a very they're going to take very good care of all their customers and it wouldn't be any different for us and so I would be more apt to let's take it to the county at the 34% increase and if we are locked in for three years let's just assume that we would spend the same money we spend in the six months as would for the three-year contract and we could as we see after the first second year if it's not working we can start working towards raining that in we it really wouldn't cost us anymore but if we kick it down the road and we go ahead and invest that 101% increase of our of our money to build it it doesn't work with you know then we got to potentially lay off folks we've got we've already spent it so it's gone and we basically we just wasted three years worth of kind of contract we could have had so I think that's that's that's something to think real hard about in that decision making that's my comments on it sure let me ask another question in this process um utility how would utilities are going to be out of this that's going to still have to occur right yeah so that component it uh is not baked into this number you've separated that um and then the scenario where we've been Staffing this position with a police officer is his salary going to the dispatch or is it going into police in which case we don't have all the cost accounted I don't I don't think they're breaking or they're not cross charging yeah they're not moving that number into that so which this number is artificially Low by whatever that person number of police officers that been Staffing here which numbers artificially well I think it budget yeah the budget number is based on what was budgeted in in in this budget so it doesn't necessarily reflect what is actually being spent today on that now there there's probably some offset so it's not that dramatically large from what you see in you know an actual perspective because you have a positions aren't filled so you're not spending that money you know a police officer is a little bit more expensive than a dispatcher so there is some but it's not exponentially large so that's why we're underrunning is because we haven't staffed those positions but essentially we've got cost sitting in police that's not been transferred back yes so so the reality of that would be that these percentage increase would shrink right so instead of in in in the county model it wouldn't be 34% it would be 20% or whatever it would be something less something so but same same Dynamic you have a 20% increase a 70% increase and a 80 or 90% increase so I have a question to um you I think I think you did Eric I'm not quite sure the cad system reports do we we have the cad system does our CAD system now are we able to generate reports similar to what the county generates we're in the same B system as count right so so we're able to generate the same reports corre okay um how many times have we lost power that we're that this being said how did you say it er something they have a redundant side so so how many times have we lost power that we've not been able to provide service we haven't since I've been here we've had an issue with the um radios themselves it's the reason we were trying to we're getting new ones get new yes yeah than the captain if he knows I'm not famar with having ever lost complete I'm not fam you with having ever lost complete service to the dispatch room okay um in my 10 year year generator so it order L back up and we're good with that yeah correct when the when the power of the building goes out the generator comes on and then Powers the building almost instantaneous okay all right and then the other thing that you brought up is a negative um we don't have quality control but in the new process um that's that's something that we would be um we would be using the cad system reports I mean we would be developing a quality and we do need to have absolutely you got you've got to evaluate what you're doing because you can't make it better if you don't know what you did what you broke you can't fix it if you don't know what's broke so we totally need to have some sort of a quality program I think the difference as I said is in you the county model because they're larger and and their funding source is broader so they they have they have a lot of ancillary staff that we wouldn't be having right so you know they have a separate section of their their Communications Department that that's what their function is you know we would be doing that with you know kind of a tandem between our our supervisory staff that's going to be there now understanding that supervisory staff they're going to be working dispatchers as well so they're not going to be able to dedicate all their time to do that right but you know we'd figure that out and and try to develop what is the best practice we can um you know again another place where I was at uh large again larger organization though um you know we were able to do something similar you know we were doing I think we we guaranteed one of every 20 calls was being reviewed and and I think because we're smaller we could probably do one of every 10 right so we could develop you know what that that policy is that the the supervisors would be required to review but there' also be a higher review also being done by you know the the the triumphant the the true Chiefs and myself and you know we would probably be able do a little bit more on on the on the issue side than the you know the the leading side where you know we're going to be responding especially in the beginning to you what are where are we falling short in terms of what the dispatch expectations are and so that's what we'll be listening to more so than than kind of randomly pick them out but ultimately get to that as well what we used to what we did was high risk low volume you know any you know your how many C arestes do we have not that many so that's a high risk I would be doing 100% of those but your mvas maybe you're not going to do as many because it's you know you got higher volume do you know so the high-risk low volume things is where the quality assurance is really um yep ABS plus your complaints of course but but that's where that's where the focus needs to be okay thank you and and I think the the had another another thing I wanted to add on to that with this um now I forgot what it is uh with with the quality control piece I think that that it's totally gone I know where you're coming from with that very good thank you GL I may remember oh oh I I remember now sorry it is really in the data piece and I'm not saying it because you know Dave sitting over next to me but you know we do generate a lot of information and and I think going forward we're going to have to develop even more information and be able to use that that data that's to start you know isolating towards you know one of the things uh whereas that most recently with St Clair Shores you know we we required a report from the agency that handled our dispatch to give us you know all the calls and they were ranked in terms of how long it took him to get it out because we had a number you know they were supposed to you know get you know police calls out at a certain amount of time fire calls out at a certain amount of time EMS calls out at a certain amount of time and so the report was you know the the the edges right the ones that fell outside of what that was and so we knew you know which city it was happening in what the call was um you know down to you know what where where was the call in terms of the address and all that and and those are very valuable because you know it kind of points you to where the issues are you need to address and and they just stand out like a sore thumb when you have everything fallen in you know within parameter and here's 10 calls and so it just allows from a management perspective to start drilling down why did these 10 calls fall out and and you start seeing patterns that you don't see in all these other calls that are meeting the standards but they could have easily been outside of that because there's something similar to it you know maybe a dispatcher you know it may be you know a certain type of call is is you know needs to be looked at differently in the way we dispatch thank you those are the only questions I had thank you um one of the things that I thought they've already had success with Dade zepher Hills and Newport riches in progress right uh are you able to reach out to them and kind of get some uh some you know maybe a sort you know Sol you know solicit information from these city managers and see how well uh it it went how the transition went and uh do they feel like it was a success story or is it something they're thinking about abandoning every one of these cities is much larger than us and I can't believe that the same kinds of things uh wouldn't happen in these cities as well so it might be a good opportunity to reach out build some bridges between these other cities uh and uh find out what what they're saying you know and and I'll say that the date city is really the only one that's had a history of this zepher Hills just went over in beginning of May April May I think is when they went over okay um Newport Richie obviously hasn't done that yet I mean they're still working I think on the contract to go sh me to the Board of Commissioners so there isn't there isn't that that history there so dat City would be the one that would be the most the most provide the most long longitudinal type of information on how it's going but zeper Hills since they're in transition right now it might give you an indication of things to expect if we choose to move in that process where where are the speed bumps you know gr just the only difference in those two would be was us and Newport are different than the rest because we still provide our own fire services to our date City in Zer Hill Serv so those questions would be you know perfect in line for the law enforcement side of it any issues pros and cons they may have had newport's gonna be the first one to be still having their separate Services just consolidating the dispatch and let me just say and I'm not going to speak ill of city managers okay but really where you want to talk to is police Chiefs okay because you know we we see things a little bit differently you know and and one of one of the pushes you know in in you know my profession has has a history of pushing consolidation right because we see it as you know people coming together lower cost you know because because quite frankly you know city managers kind of we we view things you know level service cost to provide that service you know the control issue because we don't have a lot of control anyways in our lives um is not that big of an issue and and so really it comes down to money and level of service and and traditionally a a Consolidated dispatch done correctly is going to provide you a higher level of service and and um a more cost effective service and so we love that and and we tend to push towards that in everything that we do um and so that's that's kind of thing you always have to be careful about with us is that we we go we love that um so it's probably not the city manager you want to talk to it really is the chiefs of police the fire chiefs that are going to have a better understanding of what that is because they are the ones that are going to be on a daily basis having those headaches okay so from a medical scenario we're already on the county correct correct so we're only talking about fire not the EMS that's part of the discussion that he had mentioned that that number may be lower because again when I can't speak for him but the number he had given us is $61,000 you know whatever it may be I was just looking at basic call volume versus how many dispatchers he and assuming he just you know picked the number based off the salary and threw it out there but reality is a very small percentage of all the calls that we run we run on our own they don't even know about you know what I mean so there is a smaller percentage of that so the cost we think might be definitely lower than what we were thinking but thanks and there's a couple more things so going back to the the redundancy thing that's kind of a bonus I guess you get with a county I we could spend up another side here that's just astronomical right the benefit of that is you don't necessarily look of course you do it in it all the time right is redundant systems but you want that high availability it's not that it may ever happen but when it does it's it's bad right and if you think of some event that would potentially put us in that place a tornado or hurricane where the for some reason that the city hall got knocked out whatever somebody gets a car wreck and crashes in the dispatch back there what you know whatever could happen it would cause that that uh facility to be inoperable for a certain period of time and especially if it's something like a weather event or something like that where then you have all kind of calls coming in because other people are impacted as well you don't recover from that right and so that's where the the bonus of having that redundancy you don't have to worry about that the systems are online but it's may never happen well I mean we've talked about majority of our calls are off cell phones that go to Pasco County to start with right so they don't even go to US unless we use the landline if there's a we event the landlines are down there there's no there's no phones so kind of kind of blows that up sorry well that's that was the other part of the thing I was going to add too is that the calls are going to the county anyway so all they're doing is dispatching our police or they're moving it to our dispatch if our dispatch isn't there it isn't get dispatched because they don't dispatch they're only forwarding that call on so that's another obviously benefit from going to county is actually from a from a service level perspective they're getting a call and they would be dispatching it as opposed to the time that goes between again minimal 45 seconds I think Eric said um where they have to transfer to our dispatch and then our dispatch acts on it so there's a there's a benefit from there because those calls are getting dispatched quicker um so you it's the redundancy is a bonus I think you're going to actually get some increase service level because people that dial 911 from the cell phone um that's getting dispatched immediately there are some obviously some pros and cons each way but I think the level Ser as I kind of think like the city manager city manager Collective does is that um it's cheaper it provides a better level of service and that just makes sense to me I I don't see I don't see any in here that justifies the higher cost that we're getting it's worth that extra cost I just there's you know there's there's maybe a few things uh but I don't think they're worth doubling our cost as opposed to just a third of the cost so any more comments Chief yeah I was gonna pass if you guys done okay chief you want Can Can I with the air conditioner can you just speak up a little bit I'm sorry I know it's on already but the Air's on sorry okay I keep hearing about the level of service um we have a good level of service just uh Captain pulled some numbers for us over from January 1st of last year to December 31st of this year the average dispatch and response times for cour Richie fire department that means when our dispatches received a call dispatch it the average is one minute and two seconds the response time is under the five minutes that they looking for which is 4 minutes and 49 seconds P fire rescue is that 3 minutes and 11 seconds from dispatch from receiving a call to dispatch in 7 minutes and 21 seconds in the response time we're at 4 minutes and 36 seconds and uh four minutes and 9 seconds in the response time Sheriff's Office dispatch time is 20 minutes and 41 seconds and your response time is 12 minutes and 46 seconds date city is 7 minutes and 26 seconds and 5 minutes and 20 4 seconds so I'm not quite sure what the response with this level of service if we're providing a level of service I don't hear complaints about us not making it to calls I don't hear any complaints from the citizens complain about the fire department making it calls yeah and so I can I can so when I say level of service I'm not saying that our level of service is bad by any stretch and when you when you give those details just the county when respect that you say it was 20 minutes that's not that's not 20 minutes of dispatch time that's 20 minutes from the time that they get the call to the time they dispatch those are numbers we pulled from their CAD system and that's the average of course there's going to be outliers but that is the average for the entire year yeah that's not the numbers that they have and that I'm sure person that doesn't even seem possible you also have to look on the cad system for all of the county that's correct and so now you also have to look at the types of calls that they have as well which can inflate their number but the whether it's and it'll just based on whatever uh Captain Seltzer said there is a set time based on the type of calls that they have that they can hold so overall that's the number we pulled within the last two days so so let just to clarify that so what you're saying is a call came in they had the sheriff had officers available to to go to a call and they didn't hear about it for 20 minutes I don't know if they had officers available to go I'm just time been dispatched off okay if they don't have any officers right so but but we the point I'm trying to make is that there's a different level of response time from us there most definitely is correct okay so I just wanted to give you those numbers go go you and as far as the calls for service during that same time frame uh the city received 29381 calls for the year uh 27774 were for the police department uh the fire department had 167 um so when you look at just on the commenting on the hybrid number to agree with what the chief said so for 5.47% of the calls they want to charge $61,000 so are they going to charge us the other $330,000 for the police department so obviously that number is not correct yeah I think he mentioned that that was probably high as far as them taking our dispatchers agreeing to hire them that's partially true it's not totally true because they still would have to go through a hiring process and that's there's no guarantee that they would be hired so in in regards to the um not having to worry about Staffing by going to the county you won't have to worry about Staffing on the county side you still have to worry about Staffing here that doesn't change so by then I don't want that there be some misinformation or misunderstanding or perspective because when they say that you don't have to worry about Staffing they don't have to worry about Staffing we still have to worry about Staffing yes but that's not Staffing of dispatch yes it is they are going if they dispatch they're they're talking about the dispatchers that they have okay who whoever the one and a half persons that they have for dispatch okay that is them they're not going to come here and hire our Personnel to handle the other duties that will still remain with us I'm still bring back to you you had a question thank you um when you were talking about the numbers I just the 20 minute thing what was like what was the first like the headers the call you know like how do you get how did they get 20 minutes like like the call came in and it was dispatched to police or do you what I'm trying to say yes and that's the num we have if you want to clarify any of that yeah I mean I just want to know like what what constitutes that 20 minutes they called at 8:00 and at 8:20 they got dispatched or or so I believe the the key points that generate those those things is when they they the call comes in and they initially generate the call in the system it starts to clock and then from that time to the point that they hit the button if you will to send the call out to an officer or a deputy um that's the dispatch time so it it the system I believe is calculating the the the time difference from the time that the call was sent out to the time that the call came in to come up with that amount of time so okay so I'm sorry and then so the time that the call got sent out that doesn't mean there was an officer available which and we're still going to dispatch our our officer so that's really but there was a 20 minute lag time before the call got sent out right so the system the system doesn't doesn't necessarily know that there was somebody available not sent or not available or what the situation was it's it's simply saying the average amount of time was that 20 minutes and whatever seconds from the time it was received to the time it was dispatched okay so yeah so again you know I asked this question a couple times to the county on this to get clarity because I think you know I don't necessarily agree that that's a legitimate thing because we would be netia in a contract with them it would dictate what our policy is right the county has different policies Sheriff has different policies they have X number of of Staffing to answer y number of calls and and so what typically happens with that is let's say it's a a barking dog I don't know if they answer Barkin dog calls let's say it's a barking dog call every call yeah we do I understand I don't know the sheriff you know turn that over to animal controler now but anyhow um so that on a priority ranking is the lowest priority to them right so if that call comes in they're going to look and say oh you know deputies on you know a robbery deputies on an assault deputies on a car you know pulled over you know blah blah all this so they're going to hold that call until one of those deputies open up and and they get far more calls than what they have deputies for right and so that's that's what's generating that longer call volume I mean so you know what you would have to do really to compare apples to apples with this is you have to start breaking down you know our CL because that's going to happen to us as well there's only to be times when all of our officers are you know in in service and that next call comes in and it's going to be held until they break up unless it's an emerging call right you know if if they're out there uh you know they pulled someone over speeding and a call comes in that I'm you know someone is trying to kill me we're pulling officers off a less important calls correct correct so so again you have to kind of look at what what generates those calls what the policies are with it um and and again you know they're may be that when when The Barking Dog call comes in for the sheriff there's another call comes in five minutes later that is going to be prioritized above that again that could happen to us as well but it's just the sheer volume I mean not that I'm making a plug for the sheriff but they need more deputies to handle the population and the space that they have and so that's going to artificially make those call holds a lot longer than say what are would be well I the county has I just looked it up five because I took Cherokee's thing and looked it up 561,000 residents in Pasco and we're 3,000 and we're now getting dumped into 561,000 and all those calls we're g to get lost so and and I want to be I want this to be crystal clear for me because when we we what you're saying is is true we we' be service that that Pasco Communication Center would be servicing all Pasco and even more because their servic is e for Hills they City Newport Richie as well so numbers I just did Pas I I did no that's so 561 is pasy population I just I didn't do that includes the cities everything y huh it's probably higher than that well that's what that's what my little Google said so sorry so even that's right we we would be in that that mix right but we the way they handle things is they they they have a separate uh you know just because pasco's holding it has 30 calls in their queue waiting if we've got three officers sitting there at the Wawa having a cup of coffee and a call comes in we're not going to wait 20 minutes it's going to be right dispatched immediately so it really has no bearing on what's going on in the county because it's it's a separate entity it's and what I want Clarity on is going back to this 20 minutes thing because when I did my rideal alongs twice um there were times that we could see because they have it in a car how many calls are holding at the county level all right now it's my assumption correct me if I'm wrong that those calls that are in there holding let's say 30 calls are holding at the county those have been dispatched they're in a queue waiting on officer to pick them up is that a correct statement or they're they're in a queue waiting to be dispatch so dispatch is when when an officer actually get correct so they enter in the system and they put it out there and they have they have one Deputy available they've got 30 calls that have come in and so that one Deputy so then they take whatever they've got in system of those 30 calls and I guess dispatch would prioritize whatever call based on what the county wants uh say it's a it's a bad so they take that bad accident where it's at an at 30 and they send it to that officer and those other 29 sit out there until another available and then once once they marry up a deputy then so if that's the case if that's what the timing is that 20 minutes makes perfect sense because the dispatch process is when an officer picks up the call right right okay just add to it I'm not saying anything negative about the sh off because they do have exorbitant number of calls they're short on deputies and they do have to prioritize and I just giving you the numbers as to what it is and it's already been explained that if they don't have anybody available they don't have anybody available and then they're going to prioritize the first available deputy and I get that I'm just trying to give you what the actual numbers are so they do what they do the best that they can do with the number of people they have and they do a great job right so and and and the conversation is not about other departments and and their their response times or whatever what it's about is that information while interesting doesn't apply to our specific situation so if we have that same scenario we have 30 calls holding a Pasco and we've got three of our officers in service have a coffee at Wawa and a call comes in just because pasco's got 30 out here waiting and zepher Hills has 10 and D city has two and all that P Richie has none that call goes directly to us and our response time would be no different than if we dispatched ourself and probably quicker because when it came in on a 911 call on cell phone they immediately see we have officer available boom it connects with an officer so the the information that uh about all these delays or whatever that doesn't apply to our scenario it doesn't isn't because they've got those call those and does that we're not going to fall in line behind those we're a separate entity and it goes right to us I just I think what what I'm hearing is you you we're saying we get a better level of service which means a a better response time I think what I understood Chief was saying is this is what the county has in in stock we we know that that's going to happen we're not going to get a better service we're going to get the same service of our four and three in two minutes response times we're going to get the same service is not going to be a better service going to Pasco the the these these employees when you have employees here they're dedicated to us to hear I mean you heard Diane I mean she's very dedicated I'm sure the rest of the dispatchers are equally as dedicated to their job as well when you don't when you at the county with a bigger entity there Le there's less dedication to this specific little Port Richie I'm not saying they're not dedicated employees they certainly are um but they're not looking out for Port Richie specific where our our individuals our dispatchers would so we would I kind of disagree excuse me for I don't agree that we would have a better level of service um yeah by going to the county and and that's kind of what you alluded to and I think that's where the numbers came into play and that's how I understood how why he brought them up and let me rephrase that when I when I talk about better level service our level of service from a call response time and all that would be identical maybe slightly better if it was dispatchment mechanical it came in there first there's no 45 second delay but we wouldn't see anything different it would be the exact same from the county as it would be if we did in house the better level service comes in with all the other things you get with that you don't have to you don't have to worry about Staffing it's it's a better level of service because we don't have to staff it we don't have to put out uh uh job announcements to try to get people in interview that we don't have to worry about any of that administrative uh ability other than the the telet typers and the police AES whole another different type of employee right but we don't have to worry about Staffing dispatch we only have to worry about Staffing the the police AIDS at that point it's a it's a it's a smaller responsibility than to hire dispatchers get them trained and make sure that we have somebody and that they're coming in one thing I want to also add in this when we bump up the salary of dispatchers you're talking you're bumping up the bottom right what's the entry-level police officer going to think when we he just narrowed the Gap and he's only a dollar or two off of a disc ped they're probably going to come back in a negotiation and want more money and so it's a riple I just minimum wage goes up you know everything kind of goes with it so if we if we um if we come in there and we we we pay more for dispatchers you know the lower level police officer are going to want some more money too and it kind of ripples through there so I think there's some unforeseen costs that would make some sense to come down the road as well um and one more thing on the police a AES we would be getting a uh some additional level of work out of those folks that we wouldn't be getting with their dispatchers you know they we could have some of those things that Matt had mentioned getting done that we don't have doing um uh report analysis report analysis we uh somebody could be looking at uh our red light tickets and and getting F those faster maybe some evidence work or whatever there's a lot of things that probably Chief would like to have some additional staff to do right but uh and that they could fill some of those roles so actually be a benefit as well at a lower cost so pass back to you Chief well I know that uh pille County dispatches our officers out to Hudson and land Lakes on calls they're waiting some someone got beat up out and land lakes and they waited five hours finally one of our officers showed up because deputies were busy with emergency calls everywhere else in the county so that's part of the the problem I think with dispatch with like you said they're short staff and they get uh all over the county it's a huge area this county is and they you get calls um out by I75 you got a the deputy Works West Pasco runs all the way out there there's no one here so um as part of problem our offices are here in 2.3 square miles right they're always going to be close unless Pasco County calls them out on another call they do that quite frequently don't they it's not it's like we did we ran the numbers last year and it was 111 times they requested US versus the 61 times we requested them but just again the clarification is um a I like telecommunicator still and the reason I say that is if you choose to do one or the other the hybrid or go to the county and then it does not work out if we hire a less qualified person in that position it's going to be more expensive and we are going to have to let people go that aren't qualified that we hire as AIDS or whatever it's better to maintain your certifications it's better to maintain people capable of doing it the full job not just ancillary duties so that if it you go to and it doesn't work out then it's simpler and easier and cost effective to switch back yeah I agree with so that's why I don't agree with trying to hire people that don't have the qualifications that of telecommunicator has because you never know what the future holds and therefore you're only prepared whereas if you hire less qualified people you're person you're not um and as you know Bob said that they do call us we call them that's what to Mutual a agreement is about we have no issue helping they have no issue helping us but again it's it if we're out on a call somewhere else in the city is we have to wait our citizens will have to wait so that's all I'm saying you have the ability to say no on Mutual a both of you but you have the ability if they call you out and you have the ability to say we can't go right now is that I remember asking that question once before okay thank you and that doesn't challenge count no I know y yep I understand that I just want to clarify that and also to clarify in the cad one quick you I know there was some concern about like our calls getting lost in the system the computer identifies it as Port Richie and immediately labels it as Port Richie and the dispatchers know immediately as Port Richie so just to give you an example on the other end of the scale uh before I came here we weren't working really well with the county and the county would have a fire truck driving right through the city and there would be a call in the city and the county would just automatically just notify Port Richie and ignore their firet truck that was literally on top of the call because it's not their call so that same process the computer does that the only thing since we initiated the mutual Aid contract and built a better relationship with the county if that fire truck's coming through they're still going to call us and they're still going to notify us with the fire truck's going to stop and and render assistance but again the computer Flags it out as our city right away all right thank you yes um you indicated that there was 110 calls from Port Richie to Pasco and mutual Aid how many of them came back this way do you know no it was it was the sheriff's office they called us 111 times and we called them 61 times so 61 versus 111 that's correct but weren't your 61 a lot of times for you needed a female officer yes the calls regards of it is it's trying to do is make a relationship there are we getting the fair share or is it is it lopsided 100 it's about right yeah okay thank we probably have had to call for a dog a couple times I'd imagine as of late right yeah a couple of times which is the reason we got to try to get our own to take the burden off the the county always having to come to our Aid so that's why we got the dog initially any other questions any more comments open up the public oh did do you have do you have comments you want to say f Chief um so I'll speak on behalf so we did a lot of investigating into this on our side and met with the County dispatch to understand what the process and how the process it so NFPA 1221 is what dictates dispatch for fire rescue this again this comments I'm to say is just fire department driven not Police Department driven and FP and also ISO which is your insurance rating is a part of our evaluation we only get half credit for ISO just because the way our current Dispatch Center is set not saying that going to the county is going to change the iso rating in a significant thing but we only get half credit that the nfda requires that in 60 seconds 90% of the calls be answered within 60 seconds they also require that the phone picked up within 15 seconds 90% of the time Pasco County obviously has a QA for process the way it's dispatched right now for the fire department is most the time because of the calls coming in via cell phone the Call's taken by Pasco County it's put inside the cad the EMD started the proqa questions are started so questions they're asking to see what amount of resources do we need to send to this call while that's going on they're dispatching so on our end there is sometimes a little bit of a delay because now what they have to do is create us a call because the way the county CAD set up and when we got on to it um years ago it's it wasn't set up to have two fire department agencies on it with different with different identities let me say it that way so there wasn't it wasn't designed so in the county CAD we're listed as what they call a rescue so in the county CAD it doesn't look at us like a fire truck it looks at us on an ambulance scale so what they have to go do is Pas county has to go in and create a call for what they call a mutual a p a PR is the call and then they have to send it over to our dispatch screen they have to create a rescue event and a fire event to send it over to our screen so sometimes when we talk about this minute and two dispatch time that's from the time we get the call to to our setting which is you know good because they get the call they they dispatch it they send it out there are some anomalies you know we went through call volume there sometimes the calls are held for 4 minutes or sometimes calls are held for 3 minutes you know it depends on what's going on inside our Dispatch Center um on on our side so that's where our our delay comes from is the fact that of how the cad set up um and what they have to do it's an extra step to kind of get us a call over to our side um the response time on our side um remember the time doesn't start beginning until they dispatch us right so we don't know how long they were on the phone prior to to putting the call and how long that that stuff's not tracked on on our side so the county when they track their calls have a call receed time a call routed some time a call take finish time and then the first initial dispatch time and that is where they get those 15 seconds and all those were those cues come into play on on that side um so that's to give you a little insight on on the fire how the fire department side works right now currently on our side any questions open up to the public speak Cindy welcome cynthy me 5446 bluepoint Drive I just want to ask some clarification questions okay so you're talking about um prioritizing okay so Port Richie doesn't have as high of high crime compared to Zephyr Hills Dade City the few others so will our calls be delayed in dispatch if they're really busy because of our emergencies are not as high as the larger cities if you want to go ahead so you want want I do this I'm just curious yeah I'm I'm just putting out the scenario is is you just talked about they prioritize the dispatch and that's where the delay comes in with sometimes with the the sheriff's office so the question is it comes in it's identified as Port Richie but it's a lower priority they are very busy so is our our calls being delayed because of it's a lower priority and they're busy have officers available but they're but but they're busy so they're going to delay the dispatch until they can they can go ahead and push it through because of we are not a high priority call at that time I'm gonna give you a three question is that well I I have that and then I have a comment go make a comment now we'll come back so the comment is is even at the town hall yesterday I heard and one of the citizens absolutely his voice was I think it would be a disservice if we don't try at least for six months to try to make this fly because like you said once we get into the contract we are in the contract for three years and then try to go back would be devastating because now you've lost all of your talent we do have to keep up um the teletype dispatch person we have we still have to to man those people we still have to update our radios so I don't see why we've already putting in the cost why we don't at least try to keep our level of service and keep our our dispatch here locally just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean it's the best everyone else is doing it because a they're just looking at the dollars and cents and and then like Mr coppler said you know I look at the dollar and cents this made sense it doesn't make people sense it may make dollar sense so that's a question but that's I was just kinding clarifying that one portion on the the priority and dispatch would that happen would that happen to us thank you so well I think I'll I'll try to answer that and then correct me if I'm wrong so the the keep mind is the dialogue between us is over so but get it um the there would be we prioritize our own calls in in a situation the call comes in in the say that we've got three officers on call um and and two more calls come in well there would be a priority one one of our off Com free so that that there would be a prior behind it but if there's no calls waiting it just comes in doesn't matter what it is if it's a dog cat a tree or whatever we've got three offic available the CES right to us there's no there's no priorit prior prioritization around other departments our department has three officers call comes in it goes at the point that we get backed up from a Port Richie perspective then I think there's probably that's part of the service level agreement we work out with the county is how do you guys want your calls prioritized if there needs to be a priority given right and so like sure understanding correct and we we would set that priority so we would put you know cat and tree at the bottom car ACD at the top domestic somewhere in the middle so we would we would let them know and that would be part of their role to know how to prioritize those calls if indeed our all our officers were in service on a call so you're saying if we have a again I do does that does that answer your question not really because of because of ask the question one more time and then say we have a hurricane and multiple cities are impacted there are a lot of um maybe we know a little bit more how to take care of ourselves here being a small community on the water and someone who's who the hurricane has spawned a tornado is not as Adept at that I come from Tornado Alley I know and so their call is going to be a high priority even though we're getting calls from Port Richie too but they may not be as high uh priority as as the tornado so you're not even going to get the dispatch the officers aren't going to know about it until they they push that button because of the priority there at the county yeah understand again I reiterate what I said and thank you for your comments the priority does not depend upon any other entity within the county if Fort Richie has officers it doesn't matter if a tornado is going all around the the perimeter of Port Richie and tearing up Pasco and tearing up Newport Richie and our officers again sitting at Wawa when the dog The Barking Dog call comes in it doesn't matter about all that chaos that goes right to our police officer and they respond did you have a question what I understand C saying is what was described before was all these calls come in and there's a queue of 30 calls and where at the Dispatch Center Richie no the county the county okay the dispatch has 30 calls and then they prioritize okay this and they can send this one there I want I use this term I don't mean it derogatory human error is somebody might miss the Port Richie there how it was described that it's it's highlighted for Richie so when somebody's got 30 L and I don't know how it's configured 30 calls in a queue in a line to be dispatched to go all over the Port Richie one might be overlooked in the grand scheme of things not because oh it's only Port Richie but because they're busy right that's how I understood I'm sorry if I they're they're busy and also that it's a is three minutes and i' you know I've given you almost double thank you um again this is this is how a public meeting ISS run and I apologize that's not how it's been run for a year hold on hold on you know I've I've had the conversation with the attorney it's been somewhat Loosey Goosey I don't want to stop we can have a conversation but at some point we got to re this back in and we're never going to get out of here agre so I I've heard the question and we continue to talk about that but I don't want more questions coming in the three minutes has expired so I appreciate your time now going back to your your thing again when when Pasco has 30 calls holding and I see your point if you got one dispatcher working with those 30 calls from the county and call can it get missed yes but I think that's what you have at the county is that you have uh more than one dispatcher working you got minimum of 10 on so you got 10 people looking at those 30 calls so and you know so I don't think you're going to see that that thing sliit through if you I think it comes in at for Richie there's going to be one of those 10 dispatchers that's going to get it right to us but I guess in a in an allout um catastrophe and there's a gazillion calls out there you know if something like that's happen we're probably impacted anyway but I guess the potential for that is there proba probably the same potential that you have for the power to go out here and we not and we need a redundant s so you know that risk is okay but this particular risk is not so I don't I guess I don't get the correlation Jo Joe ma 5446 blueo Drive Mr coppler you said that during these negotiations that you would ask for certain things but it could slip if it goes to Pasco County and there may not be servicing our city the way you initially asked for things happen okay it was brought up oh well you know what if they don't realize it's Port Richie instead of New Port Richie and so you know how long does that take you know to get that corrected we don't know it may never get corrected now I have sat here and listen to the young lady that does our dispatch she's very passionate about what she does and I think that her training new people would bring it up to her level she is not and I say this again so no one's unclear on this she is not a paycheck and pension person she's very passionate about her job J she does her job above and beyond probably what most dispatchers dispatchers do so comment is if we stay with within Port Richie there's not going to be any oh was that Port Richie or Newport Richie oops and then calls delayed dis dispatch is delayed and uh you know and something bad happens to it because of it uh you if they come in on our on our landlines maybe we should be putting on the Port Richie website and I don't know if it's there Chief you can probably answer this I I not looked um put those landlines on and just say if you have an emergency within the city of Port Richie do not call 911 because that's where you're going to end up with a problem with possibly a long dispatch so instead of our Police Department or Fire Department getting there within you know the 2 three 5 minutes which is to me is acceptable maybe 20 minutes to an hour and so I I just want you to keep that in mind not everything it comes down to Dollars and cents I've worked medical for many years and I helped develop a lot of medical systems that in the in the very beginning oh well that's okay if it doesn't come out with the exact right diagnosis you know only a 1% chance of something going wrong well that 1% chance I guess is great for everybody unless you're that 1% you know and then it goes It goes south on you so I would like to see um our city retain our dispatch and try to try to um bring it up to the levels like uh councilwoman Rodriguez has said and not lose that person the the other thing if we lose that young lady um there's no getting her back and you know I I think she said that she's somewhat close to retirement there's no way you're going to pull her back for any amount of money it's basically a slap in the face that that we discarded her in in order to pick up a a a cheaper uh dispatch from Pasco County thank you Joe appreciate it any other comments well under that Pasco model we weren't getting rid of anybody we were using those existing four to support your teletype and other things uh in the office more dedicated rather than splitting them up right and to that regard we've been three and then a part time Patrol Patrol person uh supporting that role have you been able to fill any or St staff any of those positions toh bring us full up to speed there and this has been going on for about you know about a month I guess that we've been made aw we have a we have a young lady who's going to be starting in the next full times he has some experience from Pasco County we also have a a young man who's uh in the hiring process for part-time at this point and we still have the um the advertisement out on different sites or and we keep it out and as we try to continue to hire uh where people I think the increase in salary will be a benefit it'll help help um we had a a young lady that would have been probably a great asset to us uh last week and um signning all the papers she wanted to start um and and then on the when she got home she tried to uh figure out her bills and how the salary we were offering was going to uh she wasn't able to do it basically so she changed her mind so the salary increase is definitely going to I would say definitely is it's going to be a help in trying to recruit well every job I've ever applied for I've always been able to negotiate is she able to negotiate or was she or did she ask for more the policy is that if you have experience um for every four years of experience you can get another step she had no experience therefore I could not do that so I I think we've we've heard everything from all sides and all points of view is there there anything that we haven't talked about that somebody wants to bring up any comments from staff well one thing I'd like to see all the detail behind the reports that that you have if you can send that to Matt and give it to me I'd like to see our own internal and uh the kinds of reports that you're looking at from the county and compare them with ours um s electronic copy yeah anything else all of us would be great sure so what what what I've heard tonight is uh I think I think it splits um on the staff side I think fire off wants go County uh police does not um sounds like you want to keep it in house yes sir I want to go to County um I'm not sure where Bob and Dave are on it um so and I know you need direction and which way to pursue so let's let's do this let's go each one of us and um pick which options so option option one is to let me ask a quick question sure are we making it we're not making a decision to no this is to Direction that's true all right so then whatever the direction is hopefully we can have a a consensus on Direction and then um he'll go forward with with that to put that on agenda to action so um option one would be dispatch provided by the city option two would be the hybrid with fire department going into the county and option three would be the full dispatch contracted out of the county um I'll start I I you know again it's not about just the numbers the numbers are a big part of it as a resident and as a representative representing 3500 residents in the city I think that the the residents would would see their like to see their tax dollars paid in in a in in other ways than to maintain a service that we can get much cheaper at the county with some benefits that we couldn't provide in house and so for that I I suggest we go to option three County and I also want to clarify that for the for the Facebook uh chat out there this is not the first step to go to to lose our Police Department or fire department it has absolutely nothing to do with that it is strictly a service of dispatch that we can have done at another entity for a cheaper cost and have the same if not maybe a little bit better service on certain things I think it's it's it's more prudent if it's to do that so that's where I'm at L where you at so this is a decision on what goes onto the agenda for what we're going to vote for cor so it is a decision because you said is this a decision and the answer was no we're not voting no we're not voting but we're voting to put eventually something onto the agenda the decision it's it's a consensus of what to put on the agenda it could still change we could talk about it more then and vote differently but it's we need a direction um I I do want it to stay in the city because we can when you go to the county it's a three-year commitment we can absolutely after a year whatever time frame we pick that's our decision um we might have a better role a better model than the county because we are a small entity and we do have control of our people and we do have control of our police and fire we need the education for the fire I I hear you loud and clear that y y'all aren't satisfied with some of the stuff we need to take care of that um but I absolutely think we need to give our city and our employees a chance this has not been addressed in the past it has not been tried to be fixed in the past the first thing you do is not blow it up you try to fix it and if it doesn't get fixed then you blow it up if I could ask one question on that just because you mentioned the three-year because that was that's that is a good point would that if it was if we were only a year Comm would that make a difference in your decision I don't know I I'd have to I'd have to I didn't think about that Eric because because it was said that so um and we can we can when we ask it I want to find that information out so if you could but I still think I and I don't mean to interrupt you I apologize but um again once you get rid of something to get it back is much more difficult it's to keep it and enhance it and fix it and make it better is a process that everybody wants to well most people want to do their job is better they they want Improvement they want the education they want to get better we have not provided that from what I'm understanding so we provide that maybe we'll get better quality plus we'll increase the wages I think we need to work inhouse try to fix what what we have and then you don't just you know you don't throw the baby out with the bath bath water because they're dirty you try to fix it we got to fix it so thank you so going on to you guys if at a minimum whatever direction is if we come back with that that information on what's contract if it could be done at one year on because that may make a difference in the in the final decision Dave I go to you I got a longer list of questions that that Matt's working uh I'm not prepared to make any decision until I get results I need information don't have it um some of the things are brought up tonight we need to follow up at dve city and Zephyr Hills and see how that's going what did they experience I'd like to know what's going on there because these are these are live projects that are working today is there any problems like Cindy and Jo or do they encounter that how did they deal with that like to know what's happening there um as far as we're still paralyzed we if we can't hire people today we're not going to solve the problem tomorrow so is there a solution to raising our minimum standard there so that we can at least be on par with what the county expectations are so that we can be uh in the driver's seat rather than wasting all this time trying to hire somebody and and the wage level doesn't uh isn't appropriate you know so he's paralyzed he can't even move forward with a solution today we've been dealing with this for I I know I became aware of it probably in the last 6 weeks when we've we've met this third time on this um but we're not moving we're not moving the goal line at all we're trying to exist in our own space again with without changing anything to allow for us to succeed so what I'd like to do is have a followup uh and it can occur at at a council meeting uh but I'd like to get some more information uh specifically what I requested Matt and he can share it with you guys too um so you're not you're not you don't have enough information to make a decision one way or another no Ain Happ do you um is there anything you could eliminate or you no you could so all three options on the table right now he can't even hire the right people based on the wage scale we got a non-starter right now even if we take the six months which I think that's a that's a viable solution he can't deal with it so we need to move off of that and maybe that's the first decision we make because we're going to have to make it if we're going to staff this internally we're going to have to bring those levels up anyway right before we even move so I I I think you're trying to ask for the impossible right now uh let's get uh a competitive wage so that we can address that his stabing this thing isn't going to happen for uh uh 3 to six months if we chose to move in that direction anyway it takes time to transition from where we're at today to where want to go tomorrow so we need to figure out uh if we can do this okay that's my that's my two sents Bob what's your thoughts well first thing I want to go out and visit this Dispatch Center in Pasco County but I am leaning towards County service for a couple reasons the value um and taking a load off of these people trying to maintain staff in the dispatch office is painful and there's a lot better use for their time their time is worth a lot too uh as far as doing other things and trying do staff at dispatch office uh it's a lot of work and it's a it's a lot of responsibility and things go Haywire then you know t on their face but I just think it would be best value right now for Pasco County to do it but I want to visit the Dispatch Center okay so it sounds like the best direction we can get now is we have um you know myself and and Bob leaning towards County dispatch Linda is leaning towards doing a house Dave is totally open to that so um I guess for direction wise is obviously if you want due diligence did you get the chance to visit their dispatch no okay definitely do that I'd encourage you to do that as well just so you get us view of it before we do acent well I won't be doing anything till July well if you get a chance before we do that it was a good thing to see if we don't do that right um but if if she's going to be out maybe this is a good time how do we address the wage scenario because we're still paralyzed without that right Matt you got any suggestions there well from the wage it's not us determining ultimately that wages negotiation because they are cont no I'm talking about Chief being able to staff that pos position in the inter because we got to still deal with it today ourselves but again we it's not a unilateral this is what we're going to pay them MH we have to sit down with the union and say this is what we want to do and this is what I was alluding to as soon as you open those negotiations for the dispatchers I would imagine that would open up all wage for all employees or no you specifically say that okay yeah you know I've sat here and I've heard the dispatch people complain that they're not getting competitive wages and as a result exactly what happened Fair nobody see get and that's something I didn't bring up one one thing that that that our help well if they go to pass Pas County will'll hire them and it looks like they'll get more money also if they do that so they have better organization probably better equipment and they'll have better wage so that's might be better for them too so Chief has Chief had up I I agree with what the chief is about to say is that that the county the county isn't making a unilateral offer to hire any of our dispatchers what they're saying is that they can be if if they meet the qualifications that's the first thing they have to do they have to meet qualifications the second thing is they'll be thrown into the bucket with everyone else that's applying and so they would have to go through the the hiring process well they said that they were going to hire people they're look always looking for help no they said they would they would allow those that meet the qualifications and and you know it's not just living and breathing you you can't have been fired by them you know there's other things that that you know kind of go into place that that could prevent people from from being hired from so it's not 100% but again you know from our perspective we're going to be employing you know those we like to keep them because they already know all the things that outside of the dispatch piece that we're going to be doing so we would want to try to keep those in and and if you remember way back when uh when we started this which not that long ago but it seems like a long time ago um you know I had said that that there may be individuals right now that are dispatchers for us that want to be dispatchers and and if we go away from dispatching they may go find their their career someplace else and so even though we want to keep them we we just won't because they they have you know the desire to be a dispatcher so I I think that that you know we can't say that we're going to be able to maintain them because they may go someplace else um but it's not a given that they would be accepted by the county they would have to go through the hiring process Chief other point I wanted to address is regarding the law enforcement officers and wanting more money if we open up uh negotiations if you will to increase uh telecommunicators salary uh I don't believe that's going to happen and the reason is when I first got here their starting wage was $12.98 I did a few things to get them um compensated more to maintain it and officer were in favor of that they realized the importance of having telecommunicators quality telecommunicators that know them that know this city on staff so you won't get any push back from the officers because they know the value of the people that we have um so I don't think that will be an issue maybe not I only bring it up because it's a talking point and I know we when we went through the the salary study those um those ranges were based on a percentile and so it was equally distribute across those positions so if you if you for instance if you raise a dispatch pay so it's no longer in the 25th percentile but it's in the 50th percentile and everybody else is in a 25th percentile I would that would be great if nobody complained about that but I'd be careful to say that that won't happen even if they do know the value because if I was in a situation I would ask so but maybe not just something to think about that that could be something we would have to revisit as a potential um another increase of cost you have something depart absolutely first off I'm ecstatic that this conversation's even taking place um it was one of the biggest pills I had to swallow when I came here so just the fact that we're even contemplating making changes is a static to me um does it matter to me what option we go with because at the end of the day I have issues and all three options solve my issues so I don't have a preference from one over the other I'm not I'm not you as the fire chief I'm not going to sit here and say we need to make a 1.5 approximate millage increase on the taxpayers to go with this option or make a 0.25% to go with this option and that's your decision to make across way higher than me at the end of the day boss man asked me to put together ideas and things and focus on the issues that I have and what would solve those issues and the presentation that you have and was proposed solves the issues for the fire department across the board the only problem is some solve it faster than others and um I don't know if any one of us have the answers to um every question that we may bring up up and contemplate in here it's time time will tell some of that and Truth be things are contractual we can probably negotiate some of those things and the end of the day we can wait and go we could go and come back but just the fact that we're making progress and and you guys took this serious and and and listen to what we had brought makes me happy so thank you so much and again I I just don't want anybody to think that I have one particular preference across the board I don't all three of these solve the issues that we have it's just a question how much of an impact do we want to put on everybody else but I just wanted to clarify that I don't have a preference one way or the other so all three offices take care even because you guys have had some y but but some of them are going to be immediate you know I mean a lot faster than others you know what I mean a lot faster acting than others yeah obviously and that's very true obviously the the lower cost is probably the faster TR to being fixed as opposed to building our department up if we can even do that based on the staffing issues on so appreciate that clarification um so I think what what we need to do for for uh going forward is I'm gonna ask each one of my colleagues make sure you do when we find out what when this is on the agenda that you get all the research that you need that you reach out to the city manager get all your questions answered because when it comes down to having this on the agenda I don't want to have the same conversation over again we we spent two hours and 15 minutes here and so I think we we've identified everybody's where they are there's some information we need to share so when that comes out make sure that you look at that and you're prepared to make a decision when it is on the agenda um I would just go ahead and put uh all three options on the agenda and we'll uh I'll entertain a motion for whatever one and we'll we'll go through the vote we'll see where we end sound okay can I request that it be the first meeting in yes and I would totally agree I I'm sorry to put that caveat in there but this has been planned for a year and a half so I apologize I would I would not want to do it without you here no problem yeah make sure that the gine Linda will be a in play she mention that I am going to be gone from August 3 to August 12th okay so August 3D ises that Co we'll be back by the 7th of July I'm leaving Saturday so that doesn't overlap okay because obviously we're down if we have two people out we don't we don't do anything I will be back um in town on the sth the sixth really I'll be back for the 13 coordinate with when you go to put reach out make sure we have the full counsel any other concerns I want to thank you all for your time staff again I know especially you all who here last night thanks but that's a lot of work to do unfortunately but I appreciate your your dedication service to the city and as well as public thanks for coming out um that look for motion motion to adjourn second motion second all in favor saying I I I have to go to the ladies room